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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

belated.

Affected or overtaken by the lateness of the time; hence, synonym of benighted (“overtaken by night; caught out by oncoming night before reaching one's destination”).

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/bɪˈleɪtɪd/Received-Pronunciation/bəˈleɪtɪd/General-American/bi-/General-American[-ɾɪd]General-American

  1. Affected or overtaken by the lateness of the time; hence, synonym of benighted (“overtaken by night; caught out by oncoming night before reaching one's destination”).

  2. Later in relation to the proper time which something should have happened; specifically, delayed beyond the proper time.

    A belated happy birthday to you!

  3. Slow to learn or to adopt a trend; hence, lacking education or sophistication; benighted, unenlightened, unsophisticated.

    figuratively
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bider. Proto-Germanic *bi- Proto-West Germanic *bi- Old English be- Middle English bi- English be- English late English belate Old English -ed Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Germanic *-ōdaz Old English -od Middle English -ed English -ed English belated From belate (verb) + -ed (suffix forming adjectives, and past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs).

verb/bɪˈleɪtɪd/Received-Pronunciation/bəˈleɪtɪd/General-American/bi-/General-American[-ɾɪd]General-American

  1. simple past and past participle of belate.

    form-of · participle · past
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bider. Proto-Germanic *bi- Proto-West Germanic *bi- Old English be- Middle English bi- English be- English late English belate Old English -ed Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Germanic *-ōdaz Old English -od Middle English -ed English -ed English belated From belate (verb) + -ed (suffix forming adjectives, and past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.